Thomasson: How do we know good guys from bad?

WASHINGTON — Poor old David Gregory — not only as host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” did he have the odious task of interviewing the nation’s leading gun advocate, Wayne La Pierre, according to the online newspaper Politico he is now apparently being investigated for being a bit too graphic in making his point that high-capacity ammo magazines might be a prime cause in the latest firearm atrocity.

Gregory held up a high-capacity magazine and compared it to a smaller clip in asking whether La Pierre thought there might have been fewer deaths in Adam Lanza’s rampage in Connecticut had the extended device not been available to him in the massacre of 20 elementary school children and six adults.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t get the logical answer to a simple question from the unyielding National Rifle Association CEO. But to make things worse for himself, Gregory apparently was in violation of the District of Columbia firearms restriction on even possessing the expanded magazine, whether or not it was attached to a rifle. NBC reportedly had asked the Metropolitan Police Department for permission to display the magazine on the Sunday morning show and had been turned down. At any rate, the producers apparently decided why not show an empty magazine that holds 30 bullets that a battlefield-style assault weapon can spit out as fast as one can say NRA.

Those who have taken a sacred oath to defend us against all intrusions on our right to brandish deadly weapons and oppose any restrictions on these magazines immediately screamed that Gregory had violated the Washington gun law, stopping just short of accusing him of pointing a deadly weapon at their hero.

Advertisement

At about the same time a young accountant who had just moved to Capitol Hill was shot down in his automobile while parking it at his new residence. He hadn’t even had time to turn off the engine before two unidentified men ended his brief sojourn near the citadel of Second Amendment rights, the Congress. His friends said he was thrilled to be where the action was. They obviously couldn’t say whether he felt that way during the last few seconds of his life.

While La Pierre was extolling the virtues of putting armed guards at 135,000 schools nationwide rather than disturb the sale and traffic of semi-automatic rifles like the one used at Sandy Hook Elementary School, an ex-convict in Webster, N.Y., used another model of that Bushmaster rifle to murder two firemen and wound several others who were responding to a blaze he set as a trap.

The culprit said in a note he was doing what he liked best -- “killing people” -- which of course is what assault rifles are meant for.